Louisiana reviews the five years — 60 months — before a Medicaid application when checking for asset transfers. LDH's transfer policy (I-1670) requires caseworkers to look at any income or resources given away during or after that window and determine whether the person received fair market value in return.
This isn't the same test as a federal gift-tax calculation. The rule applies to anyone applying for or already receiving long-term care or an HCBS waiver, and it reaches transfers made by that person's spouse as well. A transaction only becomes a problem where fair market value wasn't received and no policy exception or successful rebuttal applies.
LDH describes the baseline date plainly as 60 months, or five years, before the Medicaid application, and directs caseworkers to dig into any uncompensated transfers made during that period — both before and after the institutional-coverage application is filed. Whether a penalty actually attaches, and for how long, depends on the policy's eligibility and service rules, not simply on the calendar date a deed was signed or a gift was made.
Louisiana currently publishes a $7,200 monthly transfer penalty divisor, used to convert an uncompensated transfer into a period of ineligibility.